I could get used to three days off, and then it would not seem like such a momentous event. For now, it is still a new and exciting twist to our lives. I even left the property on one of the days.
Saturday, 30 August 2014
I woke at nine thirty to the sound of intense wind and had immediate sympathy for the vendors down at the Saturday Market. The tents are hard to handle during wind. I checked my local weather and learned the gusts were up to 22 mph. Sure enough, later on when I walked through the market, about a third of the vendors had given up and gone home during that hour of wind. It’s a shame they could not hold on, or wait it out in their vehicles, and the weather was pleasant from noon onwards.
a rather empty market on a big tourist weekend (Labor Day)
peppers at De Asis produce
lilies for sale, and puddle evidence of overnight rain
flowers from The English Nursery
succulents
My real mission was to meet Garden Tour Nancy for lunch at Olde Towne Café. On the way, I passed the storage yard for old boats and for the first time ever I saw the gate open. Of course, I nopped in for a closer look.
Wouldn’t this make a great garden shed?
Outside the fence, a family looks at a very old boat.
a poignant sight
on the way to Olde Towne, a planter and building do a colour echo
I’m planning to take the catmint out of the planters, as it goes through an awkard stage in midsummer and takes up too much room. It looks awfully good right now though.
At Olde Towne, Allan happened to come in and sat with his friend Chris to talk of boats (of course); Chris is the one who gave Allan the little sailboat that he takes out on Black Lake.
boat talk
Nancy and I talked about garden tours, gardens, chickens, and what makes us happy.
After I got home, I did not set foot off my property for two and a half days, and that makes me quite happy indeed.
I admired some of my many hardy fuchsias:
DebRon’s Black Cherry
Chillerton Beauty
and other plants:
clematis new love
Chelone (pink turtlehead)
Persicaria ‘Firetail’
a late, lone flower on Mermaid rose
I noted that the cat quotation is not entirely blocked by the new support for their platform. But you can’t read that it is by Beverly Nichols.
I even tackled some very late afternoon weeding, digging the chives that had in such a silly way seeded themselves in a shade garden. It looks much better without them.
also pulled about a million forget me not starts
Allan’s day was spent in a leisurely way of doing errands and little things like moving the house numbers so they show, since I planted a conifer in front of them and it grew. Oops.
On the way to and from the post office, he had the pleasure if seeing the Ilwaco tortoise that lives in a private yard. Neither of us have seen it this close up before; it came right up to the fence.
The tortoise moved very fast when it decided to return to the back yard.
Sunday, 31 August 2014
Island Lake
Allan went boating on Island Lake with his styrofoam boat (that I disrespectfully call the picnic cooler boat).
Looking north with island in background.
Looking south.
Leaving the launch. I had the lake to myself on a very pleasant sunny Labor Day Sunday.
Approaching the peninsula that makes the lake look half the size it is.
Over half the lake seemed less than 3 feet so I steered with the oars leaving the daggerboard & rudder in the bow. Over fifty years of dents on the styrofoam hull from my dad and the scouts he loaned it to.
The shallow passage around the peninsula
Checking out something unusual on the northwest shoreline.
a shipwreck by the shore of the lake
This is the north shore of Island Lake. I couldn’t find a dry place to beach and check out Lost Lake to the north. For a sense of scale, the ‘shipwreck’ is up on the left. I tied up (reefed) the sail to make rowing upwind easier.
Looking south from the north shore. I need to row home and start the fire for dinner.
The rose wind sock that indicates wind direction.
A visitor from Portland with a camper and a kayak helped me load.
Meanwhile, at home:
I woke up and started to debate with myself again about a certain clump of salmonberry back by the bogsy woods: Should I cut it or not?
The one to the left. It looks extra tatty.
I cut it.
I think I liked it better to have the salmonberry there. Cutting it is not a problem in the long run, as it will grown back and look fresher and greener next year. Allan says we could plant something better there; however, I feel the root clump will be just about impossible to remove. He is welcome to have a go at it with the pick.
Speaking of how “When you cut it, you can’t put it back”, I went too far cutting the poky sharp rose by the rain barrel at the back corner of the house, and spoiled the feeling of surprise when you all of a sudden come through between shed and house and see the back garden. Fortunately, it, too, will grow back.
You can see too much from here now.
I decided to have a fire so mowed the lawn first.
our fire circle
Two thirds of the way through, the mower seized up from too much wet grass and I was not sure how to clean it. There is a certain way of tipping it that floods the carburetor…or some such thing. So I got my mom’s little rechargeable electric mower to finish. I was reminded why we gave in to buying the gas powered mower.
difference in cutting height; the lowest height on the electric one is not low enough for my taste.
difference in cutting width; the electric requires more passes.
As you can tell, I was having a very exciting day. I managed to get the fire started even though my wilderness survival skills are low.
At last, some flames!
For the rest of the late afternoon, I fed the fire with twigs and bits of dried salmonberry and alder wood, and sat and admired my view of the garden (facing north, as the wind was from the south, unusually so).
Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ on the east fence
looking from my chair toward the west fence
Allan returned and we had a typical campfire dinner of beer from local North Jetty Brewing, hot dogs and chips (crisps).
dinner
It’s incredibly relaxing to watch a campfire burn out.
Monday, 1 September, 2014
Allan went off to see a boating event in South Bend; it needs its own post, as he took lots of photos. I’ll make it into a bonus post for today, publishing this evening. While he was gone, I weeded a bit, visiting for a long while with J9 when she came over (and shared some Yukon Gold potatoes and some tomatoes), and weeded some more, and took only this one photo. I distinctly recall digging out these huge clumps of Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ last fall and moving them to the east fence, and yet here they are again.
They came back.
When he returned, Allan loaded the salmonberry debris into the trailer to be disposed of tomorrow, and cut two lower branches off of Nora’s maple tree, one dead and one hanging low over our fence. Oh dear, once again, I re-learned the sad lesson that once you cut it, you can’t put it back. I had just been thinking of the shade for my east garden bed, not of how that bit of foliage hid the view of a big house way up on the hill. (Eventually, the flowering currant underneath will thrive in the extra sun and grow up to fill that space.)
I’ve been reading a book called Eden on Their Minds, recommended in the Danger Garden blog.
This quotation by Louise Goodall Smith of Birmingham, Alabama, spoke to me of my various efforts in the garden this weekend:
